In this competing continuation application we are proposing to further pursue a long-term maintenance treatment study of Dysthymia. Additional questions about long-term treatment have arisen in the course of the study, which constitute four new specific aims for the future work. During the past four years we entered 105 patients with DSM-III-R Dysthymia into a long-term study. Patients who remitted on open desipramine (DMI) treatment in the acute phase, were continued on DMI for four months (continuation phase), then randomly assigned to maintenance DMI or taper onto placebo for two years (maintenance phase). Preliminary analyses showed that maintenance DMI prevented relapse and increased survival time without relapse compared to placebo. Several important new and remaining questions will be addressed by the extension of this study: (1) Does long-term treatment response differ according to Dysthymia subtype, i.e., Pure Dysthymia versus Double- Depression? (2) Does the need for and effectiveness of maintenance treatment differ according to the type of remission induced, i.e., Full Remission versus Partial Remission? (3) What are the relative proportions of relapse following treatment discontinuation after various durations of remission, e.g. 6, 18 or 30 months? (4) Does retreatment with the same agent (DMI) reliably induce remission when a relapse occurs off medication? (5) What is the impact of longer-term treatment on measures of interpersonal and social vocational function? Certain modifications are to be made in the research design and the sample will be somewhat expanded in order to investigate these issues. The current study and research team is uniquely poised to meet specific aims that address crucial clinical questions about the treatment of Dysthymia which require longer-term follow-up.